The Science of Michael Crichton: An Unauthorized Exploration Into the Real Science Behind the Fictional Worlds of Michael Crichton

by Kevin R. Grazier

Book Overview

Wherever the cutting edge of science goes, Michael Crichton is there. From dinosaur cloning to global warming, nanotechnology to time travel, animal behavior to human genetics, Crichton always takes us to the cutting edge of science and then pushes the envelope.

The Science of Michael Crichton examines the amazing inventions of Crichton's books and lifts up the hood, revealing the science underneath.

In intelligent and well-thought essays,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933771321
• ISBN13: 9781933771328
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Smart Pop
• Length: 173 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

can't escape the Warmists even here

Global Warming (formerly known as Global Cooling, and currently in the process of being transformed yet again into "Climate Change") is the 'god' of the Warmists, who will stop at nothing to force everyone to do their bidding, and will use any excuse they can get suckers to believe in. Ask yourself if you can ever take seriously the 'science' that comes from someone who says (loudly enough to drown out the debate) "the science is settled, the debate is over". Look, of course it's entirely possible, perhaps even likely that human activity has had an effect on the climate AND weather. Whether it's serious, or whether it's bad for OUR ENJOYMENT of the planet, neither we nor the Warmists have any idea. They don't even want to know. Making you do what they want is their aim, has nothing to do with "climate". Remember, these are the SAME people that took the CFCs out of hairspray, air conditioners and the Space Shuttle foam application process at tremendous expense and loss of life (the shuttle fuel tank foam, you know, that stuff that killed all those astronauts? Didn't come off when they used CFC application.) And they did this because... THE EARTH IS COOLING!!! Now they want to rearrange your life, take your money, and make you a pauper because... THE EARTH IS WARMING!!! Tell 'em to go to hell. They don't even try to know what they're talking about, it's not about "the climate", it's about CONTROL. Even if they were 100% correct about what's happening (verifiably false) you would STILL be an idiot to give them the power to do all this stuff they're proposing. Oh, Crichton. Haven't read this book, but I've enjoyed most of his novels. State of Fear is the one prior reviewers would like to have you ignore, so be sure to read it.

Great book!!!! A must get for every Crichton fan!!!

Not since the writings of H.G. Wells has one writer managed to so much to popularize the real science behind science fiction than Dr. Michael Crichton and for those like me who've either read his works or keep them proudly in their home libraries this book makes a great annotation to all the issues Crichton has raised over his impressive career. So as not to be too much of a spoiler I'll treat just a few of the entries. Most notable in Crichton's writing is probably is very famous Jurassic Park, the story of how ancient dinosaur DNA is reconstituted to create modern day dinosaurs on an island theme park of the same name. According to Crichton these miraculous creations are made through a series of easily explainable steps: 1) obtain samples of Jurassic amber...amber being a viscous substance that catches and sometimes preserves ancient mosquitoes so unlikely to be caught there (mosquitoes have existed in one form or another for about three hundred million years), 2) extract blood from the digestive tracts of those selfsame mosquitoes, 3) extract DNA material from that blood (on the assumption that the mosquitoes would've bitten dinosaurs therefore still have their blood), 4) make copies of that DNA, 5) fill any missing gaps in the DNA with frog DNA and finally 5) put the reconstituted DNA into other reptile eggs so they can be born in the normal means. In my opinion this work is probably the one Crichton work probably best rooted in real science. Interestingly however, the essay on this work shows just how extraordinarily far modern science actually is from accomplishing what this book suggests. Significantly each step of the process has its now seemingly insurmountable difficulties: 1) while the amber may preserve the visible corpus of the mosquitoes it also has its destructive effects in much the same way Egyptian mummification had both its preservative and desctructive qualities, 2) while extraction may yield residual blood there's no way to be certain which creatures were originally bitten or in what combinations 3) while DNA extraction may seem theoretically possible none has been obtained from such old samples, 4) assuming DNA could be obtained copies could easily be made...this is routinely done even in criminal forensic settings...but again the sticking point is getting the usable DNA in the first place and finally 5) even the seemingly mundane task of putting alien dinosaur DNA into other reptile eggs has its difficulties because so far even using merely parts of the DNA chain to direct alien DNA has been barely accomplished. As can be seen from this first sample, these discussions...building themselves on Crichton's own stories...are inherently fascinating not only for science buffs but even casual readers who merely enjoyed Crichton's work and more interested in the details. Another exciting example of this is this book's treatment of Crichton's memorable Andromeda Strain. Andromeda Strain...an early work by Crichton...was t

A really fun read-and it's science, too!

Dr. Crichton's books always feel like real science- get ready for multiple epiphanies about how real it is! Whether you agree or disagree with the essayists, you're sure to enjoy the thought processes. Warning: This book may lead to uber-nerd discussions.